‘Inescapable conclusion’ that breath-test statistics were inflated by gardaí

Up to a fifth of all phantom breath tests recorded by gardaí over an eight-year period were “inflated” by members, an internal Garda examination suggests.

The report established that a total of 1,458,221 more breath tests were recorded on the Garda Pulse system than were actually carried out by testing devices.

The report said that, based on an analysis of a random sample, between 106,177 and 318,530 breath tests were “inflated” — corresponding to between 7% and 22% of the overall number of false breath tests.